About Castforge
What is Castforge? Castforge is a native desktop app that drives many AI coding agents (GitHub Copilot, Claude, OpenAI Codex, Google Gemini, Cursor, Factory Droid, OpenRouter, local models, and more, around 17 in all) behind one interface, with a web account dashboard at castforge.ai for your profile and plan. See Getting started.
How is this different from using the CLI directly? Castforge runs the same official agent command-line tools you would use yourself, but wraps them in a single polished workspace. You get one interface across agents, a conversation with the Pieces workspace and applied-diff tracking, undo, per-project agent choices, and a whole dev team of roles working a live board together (free, no paid plan required), instead of juggling separate terminals. You still use your own subscriptions, so there are no per-token bills from Castforge. See Connecting agents.
Privacy and your code
Is my code private? Does it stay on my machine? Yes. Castforge runs each agent as a subprocess on your own computer against your own subscription. Your project files, your conversation history, and your prompts stay local. Castforge does not upload your code to its servers; only billing and entitlement information goes to your account.
Does Castforge read my agent login tokens? No. Each agent's command-line tool manages its own sign-in and stores its own tokens. Castforge never extracts or copies those tokens; it only launches the tool's own login flow and runs the tool. This is a deliberate design and policy choice.
What data does Castforge collect about me? Your account profile, plan, and usage for billing live in your account. Anonymous product telemetry is optional and never includes your code or prompts; you can turn it off in Settings. See Projects, account, and billing.
Agents and connecting
Which AI agents are supported? The connectable lineup is about 17 agents and growing: GitHub Copilot, Claude (Anthropic's Claude Code), OpenAI Codex (sign in with ChatGPT), Google Gemini, Cursor, Factory Droid, OpenRouter (bring-your-own-key models), and local models run through Ollama on your own machine, among others. See Connecting agents.
Do I need API keys? No. The easiest path is a free GitHub Copilot sign-in, and you can also use a subscription you already pay for. Bringing your own API key is just an optional alternative.
Can I use my Claude Pro or ChatGPT subscription? Yes. If you already pay for Claude, sign in with that subscription for the agent. For OpenAI Codex you sign in with your ChatGPT account. Castforge runs against those existing entitlements, so there are no extra API charges from Castforge.
Is Castforge free? Yes. Castforge is free during early access, with no credit card, and it is the whole product: your full AI dev team running together, unlimited messages, and unlimited local projects. The lowest-friction start is a free GitHub Copilot sign-in.
Can I use more than one agent? Yes. Connect as many agents as you want and run the whole team together as a role pipeline (Lead, Coder, Tester, Reviewer, Researcher, Designer) on the same project. All of it is free during early access.
Can different projects use different agents? Yes. You can assign a specific agent to a project's coder role from the Agents page. See Connecting agents.
Where are my API keys stored? In your operating system's keychain on your own machine. They are never sent to Castforge's servers.
Why does Castforge need a command-line tool installed? Castforge runs each agent through that agent's official command-line tool. It checks for the tool when you connect and helps you install it if it is missing.
Roles and the dev team
What is a role? A role is a job an agent takes on for a turn: Lead (plans the work), Coder (writes code and applies changes), Tester (runs tests and reports failures), Reviewer (checks changes and requests fixes), Researcher (searches docs, code, and the web), and Designer (shapes the UI and design system). Roles let agents specialize and hand work off to each other. See Your AI dev team.
What is the dev team, and what does it cost? The dev team is several agents working together across those roles on a shared live board. The full role pipeline (Lead, Researcher, Coder, Tester, Reviewer, Designer) is free during early access. Today the roles run serially (one task at a time). Everything in Castforge is free while we are in early access; we may add paid plans later, and we will say so clearly first.
What is the course board? The live board where the team's plan and progress show up as phases and task cards you can watch update in real time as roles do their work. See The board, the course, and milestones.
What are quality tiers? A quality tier is a project-level setting you pick at setup that decides how much work the team does around the code. Draft is code only. Standard adds a plan-check and verification step. Max adds research and testing on top. Higher tiers mean more thorough output and more token use, so you can dial effort up or down per project. See Quality tiers and review gates.
What is the plan-check / goal-verification gate? They are two checkpoints that keep work honest. Before coding starts, the Lead critiques the plan so obvious gaps are caught early (the plan-check). After work is delivered, it is checked back against the acceptance criteria for the task rather than assumed done (the goal-verification gate). These gates come with the Standard and Max quality tiers. See Quality tiers and review gates.
Plans and billing
What does Castforge cost? Castforge is free during early access. There is nothing to buy right now and no card is needed. You bring your own AI, so each provider bills you directly for model usage. (Earlier Pro and Pro Max plans are retired: no longer sold, but honored for existing subscribers.) See Projects, account, and billing.
Is there a trial? There is nothing to trial, because Castforge is free during early access. If paid plans arrive later, we will document any trial at that point.
What happens if my payment fails? There is no billing today, so nothing can fail. Castforge is free during early access and never asks you for a card.
How do I change my plan, update my card, or cancel? There is nothing to change or cancel, because Castforge is free during early access with no paid subscription. If paid plans arrive later, plan and card changes would happen in a secure billing portal linked from your billing screen at castforge.ai, with your card handled by the payment processor and never seen by Castforge.
Platform and apps
What OS do I need? Castforge is Windows-only at v1. Other platforms are not supported yet.
Is there a mobile app? No. Castforge is a desktop app for Windows. Your account dashboard at castforge.ai is reachable from a browser, but the app itself runs on your computer.
Where do I download it? From castforge.ai. After installing, you sign in with a magic link and connect your first agent.
Using the app
What is the Project Memory tab? It is your project's decision ledger: a running record of the choices the team made and why, so decisions do not get lost between sessions and you can see the reasoning behind the current state of the project. See Project memory and the decision ledger.
Can I undo a change an agent made?
Yes. Run /undo in the composer to revert the most recent file change the agent applied. See Recovery and troubleshooting.
What happens if I close or crash the app mid-task? Your transcript, projects, and settings are saved. Castforge resumes the session when you reopen, or starts a fresh session and carries your last message into it if the old one cannot be restored. See Recovery and troubleshooting.
Why did my agent stop with a "Usage limit reached" message? The connected AI subscription (Claude, ChatGPT Codex, or Gemini) hit its provider usage or rate limit, so that provider paused the turn. This is a limit on your AI account, not a Castforge error. Wait for the limit to reset (the card shows the reset time when the provider reports it), or switch that seat to a model or account that still has quota, then continue. See Recovery and troubleshooting.
Can I run a project's app to see it working? Yes. Castforge can preview and run your project so you can iterate on it. See Preview and iterate.
Does Castforge support plugins or MCP? Yes. The plugin marketplace and MCP support are included, free during early access. Connecting MCP servers and installing plugins extends what your agents can do.
Can I connect GitHub, Vercel, or Supabase? Yes. The Connections page has a Dev Infrastructure section for connecting GitHub, Vercel, and Supabase, separate from the AI agents. This supports publishing and deploying your work. See Publishing and deploying.
How do I open my account dashboard quickly? Use "Open web dashboard" from the account menu in the desktop app to land on castforge.ai already signed in, no re-entry needed.
Can I get my data out? Yes. Export selected projects as JSON from the Projects library, or export your whole account from Settings. See Projects, account, and billing.